The VICE-PRESIDENT: Doubtless the National Municipal Review will contain in time notes of the proceedings of that committee, so that the members will be informed. Could it not be done that way?
Mr. RANCK: As soon as the thing is definitely decided I will notify the secretary.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Yes, but I mean it would be available for any one to read in the National Municipal Review which appears from time to time.
Mr. RANCK: Probably, yes. If I may be permitted, I should like to say a word about another matter that was under discussion this afternoon. I was very much interested in what was said about present engineering training and the kind of training of men who are going into business, in their use of books, and their demand on libraries. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of going through one of the largest electric lamp factories in the country, one of whose branches has 2000 people employed, and I was particularly interested in the corps of professional men. I went there to visit a friend of mine who is a physical engineer. He was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was afterward at the head of the department of physics in one of our state institutions, and was taken from that into this concern, and within the last three years that concern has engaged, I think, four or five doctors of philosophy, four or five men who have been professors in technical schools, and they are going at that business altogether different from the rule of thumb method; and that type of men who are accustomed to use books and who do use them are coming into demand more and more. One thing my friend said, that impressed me very much, was this, that in going about to a number of engineering schools, Cornell, the State College of Pennsylvania and several others, he has been talking to the boys taking engineering courses, of the chances and opportunities for going into that sort of work. These companies are after technically trained men from the colleges and universities and they send men like him out to talk to the boys and try to get them to come into their works. Another thing he emphasized, and which I think we must keep in our mind all the time—it is a thing we emphasize as librarians of the public libraries, but it has a bearing in the work of this organization as well—he said he was telling the boys at Cornell and those other engineering schools that while engineers have to deal with things, they have to know science; yet that more than half of the problems of the average engineer are problems of men rather than problems of things. In other words, that the humanities must be studied; that you must know sociology—that was referred to here this afternoon—and economics, just as much as chemistry and business and all that sort of thing. In short the two must go together.
Mr. G. W. LEE: Mr. Chairman, you have a question box there which has been forgotten all about, and I am not very sorry.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: No, I haven't. I am going to put it in for discussion, the whole thing.
Mr. LEE: There were no questions, I think, except the question box. I should like to question that. There ought to be some machinery at these conferences for introducing the new members; some method by which we can all let it be known what we especially want to know; some way to meet the people that have this information.
Now, what I want to say about the question box is that it seems to me that the Special Libraries Association might introduce a circular that tells about the next conference of the American Library Association, and could put in a little slip saying, "Please send to headquarters a statement of what you want to know, what is your specialty." It would help immensely. People come here to get some information; they want to know about filing photographs, about dry-goods libraries and so on, and we ought to make it possible for them to get something out of the convention without trying too hard.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I think Mr. Lee has raised a very natural question. I have talked with some of the older members of the American Library Association, and it seems to be the feeling that we have lost something since we have grown so large. With eight hundred members, it is almost impossible to know every one personally, as it was when there were only a couple of hundred in attendance at the meetings. The New York library meeting in September will bring together as many people as used to come to the American Library Association meetings ten or fifteen years ago. I do not see any way out of it except to follow some definite method from headquarters so that the American Library Association itself can arrange the matter. It is not a matter of hospitality necessarily, but oftentimes the stranger within our gates is the one that suffers in these respects. After you have been to three or four conventions you enjoy yourself, but the first year it is difficult to know people.
Mr. MORTON: I should like to offer a suggestion with regard to the difficulty of the newer members getting to know the older ones. I find out that the way to get acquainted is to pitch in and do some work. Then they have to know you. I would therefore suggest putting the younger members on the various committees and make them work and work hard; then they will come to know people.